Titans tidy up their penalty problems

The Titans were the third-most penalized team in the league last season in terms of yardage – 1,040, an average of 65 yards per game. A large percentage of those penalties were called against the defense, so Coach Mike Munchak was pleased to see that the unit didn’t commit a single penalty in the preseason opener.

“Our numbers for penalties last year were way too high,” Munchak said. “With this team here, I wasn’t trying to stress, ‘Well last year, we did this.’ I kind of wanted to stay away from the comparison thing. But yes, I think the first preseason game, you look at those things. The defense … played the whole game with zero penalties. I don’t know when the last time we did that was.”

Overall, the Titans committed five penalties for 42 yards, not bad considering the large number of new faces and inexperienced players that were on the field.

“On offense, we had a couple of holding penalties (by Kevin Matthews and Daniel Graham) that hurt us,” Munchak said. “Those are tough penalties to get because they were both in the red zone. I think both times we (were held back) from scoring points because of that.

“Those things we have to be smart with our hands. But … there weren’t a lot of flags on the field, which was nice. I think that helped with the tempo.”